Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children known to children’s services teams in England and Wales have had child criminal exploitation noted as a risk factor in each of the past three years.

Information on the number of children known to children’s services teams in England, that have child criminal exploitation recorded as a factor at the end of assessment, is not yet collected centrally by the department.

Data on child criminal exploitation will be collected for the first time in the 2021 to 2022 children in need census and included in the associated statistics release, scheduled for publication at the end of October 2022. More information on the children in need census can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/children-in-need-census-2021-to-2022-guide.

Further information on the child criminal exploitation factor is included in the 'Additional guide on the factors identified at the end of assessment' document which is available under the subheading 'Factors identified at the end of assessment' here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/children-in-need-census.